What It Is Like to be Stalked

A guest post by Dr. John R. Lott, Jr., founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC)

Taylor Woolrich is a Dartmouth student whose story is continuing to make a difference in explaining to people why it is important that stalking victims have the right to be able to defend themselves, which the school is denying her. From the BBC:

A former beauty pageant contestant from California, 20-year-old Taylor Woolrich is the first to admit she’s not your usual guns rights campaigner.

She’s fighting for the right to carry a weapon on [Dartmouth’s] campus, for a very personal reason.

For years she’s been stalked by a man she first came into contact with while waitressing at a cafe.

He would turn up to see her every day and began to track her down outside work. An emergency restraining order failed to deter him.

Things became even more terrifying when she moved across the country to study at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

“It wasn’t even on my mind, and then he contacted me via LinkedIn and used social media to continue to contact me — sent me various very frightening messages, making it very specific he knew where I was,” she says.

One summer, when she went home to California, he turned up at her parents’ doorstep. She says police found what they call a “rape kit” — rope tied as a slip-noose, gloves, duct-tape, flash light, and a sweatshirt — inside his car.

Taylor’s stalker is currently in jail. His sentence will soon be up….

Her story has garnered national and even some international media attention. To read more about her efforts to protect herself while at college, watch the YouTube video above (8:58 minutes) at the August conference for Students for Concealed Carry or click the links below.

The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) is a research and education organization dedicated to conducting academic quality research on the relationship between laws regulating the ownership or use of guns, crime, and public safety; educating the public on the results of such research; and supporting other organizations, projects, and initiatives that are organized and operated for similar purposes. It has 501(C)(3) status, and does not accept donations from gun or ammunition makers or organizations such as the NRA.

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